


Lean On Me

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Bullying, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Family Fluff, Fantastic Racism, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Mettaton EX, Mettaton NEO, Minor Violence, Music, Musicians, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Pacifist Route, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Sibling Love, Spoilers - Pacifist Route, Team as Family, harrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In general, monsters are integrating well with human society. It helps, to have one of their greatest idols already rising up through the ranks of fame on the surface world. It helps that he comes bearing a brand new band at his back, fresh new beats to go with them, and old friends to enjoy the ride with.</p><p>But there are always a few narrow-minded souls who find it hard to move with the times. One night after a concert, Mettaton comes across a few of these fools giving some of his friends a bad time. He decides to cut loose a little in returning the favor, and maybe teach a few necessary lessons in the bargain.</p><p>Meanwhile, Napstablook does damage control, and reflects on how far they've come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lean On Me

**Author's Note:**

> So this is kind of a completely self-indulgent thing on my part. I just really wanted to write something with Mettaton being a theatrical and slightly terrifyingly protective badass where his band was concerned, and maybe play around with the NEO form - it gets so little love in-game, even if I can see why. 
> 
> It also made sense to me that Mettaton might find himself feeling particularly fond of and protective of Lemon Bread - after all, he knows what it's like to be trapped in a body you never wanted. 
> 
> Also, I would like to apologize in advance for the prodigious amount of ellipses in this fic. Whenever possible, I try to stay faithful to the various dialogue quirks of the characters, but in Napstablook's case, this can be the result.

When they finally took their first steps back into the light, Mettaton hit the ground running. He’d gotten good at it. This time, of course he had Napstablook and Shyren to run along with him – not to mention Lemon Bread. There had never been any question of her coming along, of course, even if she had yet to remember how to sing in a spectrum that didn’t make human ears bleed.  
Family was important, and so any sister of Shyren’s was a sister of theirs’.

They climbed quickly back up the ladder of fame. In part, this was due to the notoriety all monsters held in the first few months of reintegrating with human society. In part, this was simply because Mettaton stubbornly refused to believe that they wouldn’t. Any murmurs of doubt from his co-stars were silenced with calls for yet more practice. The two of them were already amazing, he just needed to periodically beat them about the head with that fact. He would fill them up with so much music that the doubt was shoved right out their ears from sheer lack of space, if that was what it took.

Yet every so often, a day arose to remind Mettaton that his beloved body hadn’t just been built to entertain.

The dressing room wasn’t much by his standards, but it was still a step-up from where they’d been a month ago, and certainly a step-up from the month before that. At the least, there was finally enough room so that, when everything else had been pushed against the wall, Mettaton and Napstablook could lay side-by-side on the floor together. Napstablook had their headphones on, reviewing the night’s set-list. Mettaton was recharging off the nearest wall outlet. If they both felt like garbage, that was only because that was the Blook family tradition. Besides, it had been a long and successful night, and sometimes it was okay to feel like garbage coming off a long and successful night.

Even so, the greatest of garbage moods couldn’t hide the fact that something was missing, something that became more and more evident as the minutes ticked on. It was Napstablook who broke the silence first, sitting themselves upright and shaking the headphones off their head.

“oh…shyren’s been gone kind of a long time, hasn’t she…?”

Not without a soft groan of protest – he’d really only just gotten back above fifty percent battery life – Mettaton sat up, too, and tugged himself free of the outlet. “Yes, she has. Lemon Bread, too.” The noise of the show and the raw presence of so many people had gotten the amalgamate a little wired up. So Shyren had taken her outside for some fresh air now that the concert hall and the parking lot were mostly empty. That had almost become their family tradition, now.

“do you think they’re okay…?”

“I think we’re going to find out. Just a minute, Blooky.”

Watching Mettaton transform without the benefit of smoke and lights was an interesting sight, and probably one that only a ghost could put up with. Physical beings had such inconveniences as stomachs that could twist themselves into knots at the sight of such a violation of the laws of matter and space.

Dr. Alphys had seemed surprised when Mettaton had insisted on keeping access to his rectangular body, when she’d at last refined his EX form so that he could stay in it for more than a couple of hours at a time.

_“I like to keep my options open,” was all their cousin had said simply._

What Napstablook had also noticed was that Mettaton seemed to enjoy the act of transformation almost as much as he enjoyed having the bodies themselves.

Even so, what he mostly used the box body for these days was getting from place to place quickly. Despite his and Alphys’ best efforts, there was only so fast one could move in a fabulous pair of heels. Napstablook still didn’t have legs and Napstablook still didn’t see the appeal of having legs, so they were able to keep up easily enough with their cousin as he wrenched the dressing room door open and zoomed out into the hallway towards the parking lot doors.

The parking lot was vast, dark, and mostly empty. Light poured out from the open doors and from a few scattered windows left on in the theater. Light streamed over from the street lights on the sidewalk and across the street. That still left a vast gulf of darkness between those two zones, however, broken only by the darker shadows of a parked car lingering here or there in the lot.

Or at least, that was usually the case. Tonight, the lazy silence of a city falling asleep was broken by harsh, jeering cries, and movement that resolved itself into a small throng of human forms clustered around a car. Almost lost beneath the sound of their voices was the sound of two far more familiar voices, raised in distressed protest and song.

“oh…!” Napstablook cried in alarm. “mettaton…those humans…i think they’re picking on shyren and lemon bread…!”

“So they are.”

Their cousin’s voice sounded strange, and far away. Napstablook spared him an anxious glance. Much as they hated to think that way, this was no time to wonder why Mettaton was in a strange mood. They needed to help their friends.

“what do we do…?” he asked, hoping Mettaton might have a plan.

“Why, what else would we do, Blooky? We’ll go over there, and ask them ever-so-nicely to stop.”

"you think that will work…?”

The rectangular body obviously wasn’t great with facial expressions. Napstablook could still usually tell a lot about how their cousin was feeling just from his tone of voice, but even that seemed strangely empty.

Even so, when Mettaton looked up at him and said “trust me”, what could Napstablook do but do so? At the least, they couldn’t get hurt like Shyren or her sister could.

“excuse me…” they tried to say as loudly as they could, floating forward towards the humans. “p-please, those are my friends…” But even if they had gotten better at speaking up around the band, that was in part because the band had gotten better at listening. Napstablook felt tears of helpless fear gathering in their eyes as they went ignored, right up until the point that their ghostly presence brushed against one of the male human’s backs. He turned, and over his shoulder, Napstablook saw that the car they had surrounded was empty. Maybe Shyren and Lemon Bread were under it.

“What the hell?!” the human demanded, shoving his hands out. The actual motion of course passed right through Napstablook, but they still couldn’t help but shiver a little in discomfort at the hostile intent behind it. “Gah, don’t you monsters know to stay with your own kind?”

A monster was what they were, of course, but this human made it sound like the worst kind of insult. Napstablook fought the urge to quail and run beneath an increasing number of glares as more of his friend’s tormentors noticed them instead. “w-we want to, but…but…y-you shouldn’t…”

A sound like a firework going off split the night air, shortly followed by the sizzling wet sound of boiling plasma. Napstablook saw light shining against the car and the faces of the humans, coming from behind them. They risked a glance back, to the sight of Mettaton striding purposefully over the distance between him and them. Wings of rainbow hard light flared behind him. He shook some smoke free from his armcannon, where it was still lingering after the warning shot he’d fired to get their attention. His dark hair had been swept back from his face, and the side it normally covered was now a simple, matte-black mask, marked with a glowing red eye.

 _“I like to keep my options open”_ , Napstablook remembered. They’d only ever seen the drawings of this body before.

“My, my, my,” Mettaton NEO purred, smiling brightly at the humans. “What _lively_ little darlings you are! How _wonderful_ to see. But I’m afraid you seem to have gotten carried away with your little games, and broken a _very important rule_.”

He planted his feet and pointed his armcannon at the nearest man’s face. All the humans were suddenly tripping over themselves in their haste to scramble away, behind the car or just off across the parking lot. Moving fast enough to blur, Mettaton whipped round and fired an attack scant inches in front of the human closest to getting away. His victim took several stumbling steps back, sounding a loud yelp, before falling over gracelessly onto his back.

“Don’t hurt my friends, and don’t hurt my family.”

A few more warning shots of burning plasma, coupled with the use of his wings to cut off escape routes, corralled the miscreants into a huddle by the hood of the car. “Blooky, be a dear and help Shyren and Lemon Bread out of there, will you?”

Napstablook was worried about the look in Mettaton's eye, but was more worried about their friends. They floated over to peer beneath the car, only to pull back sharply when Lemon Bread blindly snapped her enormous teeth at them. Shyren came to her agitated, terrified sister's rescue, however, recognizing Napstablook and still being in a fit state to respond to the rescue. She wriggled out from under the car, and then immediately turned around to coax her sister to follow. As always, Lemon Bread responded to their song, and inched her way back out into the open air, muscles trembling, teeth chattering.

Napstablook gently unhugged her, and Lemon Bread rewarded their efforts by letting one eye peek cautiously back out of her head. Only then did Napstablook think to check on Mettaton.

Mettaton, as it happened, had fallen right back into the role of anti-human killer robot, and seemed to be enjoying it immensely. "Well, well, well..." he mused, looking from face to terrified face. "So many possibilities for violence, so many places to start. It's enough to make a star's head spin! Perhaps I'll just pick at random, and hope that my lucky guest's head makes a nice pattern in the dirt! Eenie, meenie, miney--"

Napstablook, Shyren, and Lemon Bread all scrambled to place themselves between Mettaton and the humans. None of them were very physically imposing, there and then - not even Lemon Bread, who could be when she was feeling up to it. Yet in that moment, they were still of one heart and one mind. This wasn't right.

Mettaton looked from one bandmate to another. Then he smiled, and Napstablook relaxed, because that was their cousin's smile if anything was. It was only a momentary flicker, and then Mettaton was back in character with a vengeance. That was okay, though. Napstablook knew he was happy there.

"Oh, my goodness!" their cousin cried, placing his hand to his mouth in mock surprise. "Shyren, Lemon Bread, Blooky...you mean you _don't_ want these nasty humans turned into nothing more than artistic soot outlines on the ground?" He let out a high peal of laughter, before smiling beneficently down at the humans in question. "Well. That could have been a very _tragic_ misunderstanding, couldn't it? How fortunate for you that my darling friends were here to set me straight! I think you should thank them most sincerely, _don't you?_ "

He gestured in an apparently careless fashion with his armcannon, and suddenly the humans were all but tripping over themselves to heap thanks on Napstabook, Shyren, and Lemon Bread.

"I think you should apologize for the terribly impolite way you spoke to my dear cousin, not to mention the awful lies you told Shyren about her voice and Lemon Bread about her appearance."

Apologies and other expressions of contrition were immediately forthcoming.

"In fact..." And here Mettaton draped his unarmed arm around Lemon Bread's shoulders, tugged her nearer, and before the amalgamate could react one way or another, planted a kiss on her cheek instead. "Don't you think she's just lovely?"

Only when every single human present had declared Lemon Bread the most beautiful creature they'd ever seen was Mettaton satisfied. Lemon Bread, meanwhile, was so flustered by both the gesture and the praise that she was trying to fold herself up into a ball.  Shyren floated over to murmur disapprovingly at Mettaton for this. He had the decency to smile in apology before turning his full and undivided attention back to the humans.

"There, now!" Mettaton chirped, clapping his hands the best he could when one hand was a lethal weapon. "All friends together!" The armcannon came right back up in a blur, to point at one human in the back of the crowd who had apparently decided to take the absence of an immediate threat to mean that mercy was being granted. "Tsk, tsk, tsk! Since we're all friends together, my dear gentlebeauties, and since I am so _graciously_ allowing you to keep your legs, I think you should reward me by using them! It's a beautiful night, darlings - start walking. The police station isn't too terribly far away."

"but mettaton...what about us...?" Trusting that no one was about to do anything else that they'd regret, Napstablook floated out of the way to leave Mettaton a clear path to the humans. Shyren and Lemon Bread followed with palpable relief, though Shyren also tilted her head in unspoken agreement with Napstablook's question.

"I believe we were going to go out for nice cream to celebrate another dazzling performance, yes? I see no reason we should change our plans just because some layabouts from the nearest hall of ill repute decided to overstep their boundaries with my dear friends. Go on, now, dears, it isn't far from here. Of course, I'll join you later, but I'm afraid things are likely to get terribly boring for me while I see to this bunch."

The nearest nice cream shop indeed wasn't far from the theater, and that had indeed been the plan. A glance at Shyren and her sister told Napstablook that while both of them were anxious about being apart from their self-appointed defender, they were also both anxious about sticking around their attackers any longer than necessary.

Sometimes, you just had to do what made you the least anxious. So Napstablook made a decision. They hoped it was the right one.

"oh...we'll be okay, mettaton...see you later..."

"Of course, Blooky. Always." And here Mettaton tugged them closer in an open and unashamed hug. Napstablook remembered Dr. Alphys mentioning with a smile that he'd specifically asked for the EX body to be programmed with electromagnetic sensors that could adjust his density as needed to allow such a thing. They hadn't known he'd asked for the same for the NEO body, too.

Napstablook felt a little better.

* * *

Mettaton never did show up for nice cream. Napstablook, for once, wasn't worried. They thought they knew the reason why, and so after everyone had eaten their fill in a subdued but sincere celebration, they led the other two on a walk towards the police station instead. It wasn't far.

Sure enough, there they found Mettaton slumped against the wall on the side of the station. He had reverted to his rectangular form, just too late to stop the inevitable. Still, a few lights flickered on weakly in his face as they drew near. A few fingers waggled slightly in greeting.

"I'm almost out of batteries. How embarrassing, and after I was so cool, too."

"oh...that's okay...we'll get you home...right...?"

Shyren chirped in agreement, before urging Lemon Bread forward.

The box body was definitely the easiest of the three to transport. In the end, they managed to arrange matters so that Mettaton was slumped against Lemon Bread's broad back, his arms around her muscular shoulders, his hands held with painstaking gentleness in her teeth. Mettaton's wheel could pick up the rest of the slack in transit, and it squeaked slightly as they rolled him back towards the sidewalk and on the path to home.

"hey, mettaton...?"

"Yes, Blooky?"

"we still think you're cool...we always do..."

Shyren and her sister hummed contentedly in agreement, and even now, when they got a harmony going, there was scarcely a more beautiful sound in any world.

Mettaton gave a drowsy little laugh, making himself a little more comfortable against Lemon Bread's back as the last of his battery life flickered out. "Thank you very much. As always...you've been my favorite audience."

Mettaton had never failed his fans yet, and had no intention of ever starting.


End file.
